It was a long day, and not my favorite way to spend one, but I don’t have to do it very often, and it did have some highlights.
Isabel had a dance competition in the lovely town of Jindřichuv Hradec (Henry’s Castle), and Helena had to work in the morning so couldn’t take her, so I was up at 6 to accompany her on the train down, and it didn’t end until almost 9 p.m. Helena drove down and caught the last couple of hours, and we got home at about 11:30.
I’m not being at all sarcastic when I say ‘lovely town.’ That was among the highlights. There’s a lake, there’s a river, there’s the castle, there’s a church that’s probably bigger than the castle, there are some nice parks and a very pleasant pedestrian zone. The funniest moment was when I was walking with Isabel after lunch and we saw a couple of ducks in the middle of the street. Traffic stopped. Cars just had to wait.
The noise at these competitions is deafening, but I managed to tune it out well enough to finish all the proofreading I had to do, so that was good. If I’d have been at home, I would have watched Netflix and smoked pot all day, so it was a less distracting distraction.
On the one hand, I find it a bit disconcerting that 12 year old girls are dancing gleefully to songs where every second word is fuck, and a bit pathetic that kids who are so, so white are trying so, so hard to act black, but that’s the style of dance and half of them have no idea what the lyrics are,. anyway.
On the other hand, it’s kind of an amazing pageant. There are hundreds and hundreds of Czech children, all with amazing dance moves, and some with some wicked gymnastic skills thrown in.
They are the future. There are aspects of that future I don’t like, but it’s one that is going to be impressive as hell.